This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Seventeen months after her disappearance, police in India say they have solved the case of a missing movie actress and her family. The breakthrough also comes five months after the country’s elite Anti-Terrorism Squad said the actress had been located and was living abroad.

Laila Khan, best known for her role in the 2008 film Wafaa: A Deadly Love Story, had been missing since February 2011.

Khan was an aspiring actress who hoped to become a star in Bollywood, India’s robust film industry known for its glitzy colours, over-the-top acting and dazzling dance routines.

Mumbai police said Thursday that Khan’s body is believed to be among six found hidden in an underground water tank in the backyard of Khan’s home.

Article Continued Below

Three bodies were found covered with mud and stones on top of a blood-stained mattress inside the tank, police said. Under the mattress, there were another three bodies, a second mattress, and potential murder weapons.

“We recovered one iron rod with blood stains on it and two knives with bloodstains on them,” Mumbai Joint Commissioner of Police Himanshu Roy said at a press conference. He said the victims had suffered “substantial injuries, including head injuries.”

The corpses, one male and five females, are awaiting DNA tests to confirm their identities.

Khan and her family were reported missing by Bollywood film director Rakesh Sawant, with whom Khan was working on a new movie at the time of her disappearance, and Patel’s ex-husband, Nadir Shah Patel.

Police didn’t immediately make any breakthroughs in the case.

The cell phones of the missing family were traced to rural Maharashtra state. The bungalow where the six skeletons were recovered was set ablaze, and two of Khan’s luxury cars were found in Kashmir, the Indian cable news channel NDTV reported.

Still, some authorities had already ruled out foul play.

India’s Anti Terrorism Squad team said in February that Khan was living in Dubai with her family, the Mumbai Mirror newspaper reported.

“Police suspect Khan left the country under a fake name and identity, and are currently going through records to check the circumstances under which she left,” the newspaper reported. “Police also said that she planned the entire disappearance in such a way that people would believe she was dead, including getting someone to set her . . . bungalow on fire.”

Khan’s stepfather Parvez Iqbal Tak confessed during a June 21interview that he and the house guard had murdered Khan and her family and buried the bodies. He has changed his story since and said they are still alive.

Tak is Patel’s third husband and said in his confession that he was jealous of her second husband, Asif Sheikh.

Tak told police he was upset that Khan and her family were planning to move to Dubai without him, the Times of India reported. He was also angry that Sheikh had been given the power of attorney to his ex-wife’s properties.

Roy said he believed the killings were “heat of the moment” crimes. Police believe Tak allegedly killed his wife first. The others were killed supposedly because they had witnessed the crime.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com